


Ragdoll

by varooooom



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Child Death, Child Soldiers, Pre-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Red Room, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-09
Updated: 2015-01-09
Packaged: 2018-03-02 06:32:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2802929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/varooooom/pseuds/varooooom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Be the person you needed when you were younger." - Unknown</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ragdoll

**Author's Note:**

> Saw this quote on tumblr and immediately knew I wanted to write something for it. This story is Bucky not knowing who he is or how he got here, but knowing with absolute certainty that he needs to help a little red haired wonder survive what he didn't.
> 
> As a note for speech: if it's in italics, it's Russian; if it's unitalicised, it's English. Any Cyrillic is there for stylisation and can be pretty easily interpreted with context clues, though I'll put my good friend Google's translations at the bottom as well.

He is to help. They need him to sharpen tools that will carve the world into perfection. His work will save many lives and brighten the future of those to come. Electricity is still travelling into his fingertips and they assure him with smiles, with pride in their eyes - his work is good and all will be grateful.

He does not know why they tell him this. He does not ask. Weapons are his specialty.

The facility is open and clear, plenty of space for movement and testing. There are stains on the cement floor that give some credence to the facility's name. He observes it all critically, makes note of the barred exits and lack of decor and the armed men patrolling the viewing balcony upstairs. It's military, practical. The assignment seems too easy, but he does not ask. He is to help, and asking serves no one.

They escort him into the armory, and he immediately begins to understand. The floor is still cemented and the cold of eternal winter is mixed into it, permanent, unshakable. The bars are thick and they look relatively well kept, likely to prevent rusting and weakening. The beds can hardly be called such, more like steel benches with a sheet and a sack of straw for a pillow. It's not unlike his own - his — it's not unlike the space in which he occupies when they need him between missions, when they don't have the time to put him back in the dark. They're even the same size.

These children fit into the space better, though. Where he curls into a shivering ball and nearly touches the walls on either side, the young girls in these cells lay flat on their blankets and stare at nothing on the ceiling. There are fourteen of them, and they all stand perfectly at attention the moment he is brought into the room.

The finest weaponry the Red Room has to offer.

Something bitter and unpleasant settles into his stomach. They tell him to get to work, and he does.

* * *

When the first one dies ( is killed, he killed her, he broke her neck and she couldn't have been older than ten and he killed her he killed her _he killed her_ \- ), he immediately kneels and lowers his head, hands clasped together behind his back. His left fingers wrap around his right wrist tightly enough to bruise, heat burning in his eyes and head pulsing with adrenaline. Fear. It's fear, but he can't identify it as such, because his punishment is due and they should not fear justice.

But no one comes to drag him back to the chair or beat him for breaking one of their toys. Someone is clapping from the observation deck, a loud, steady slap that echoes through the sudden silence of the training room. He looks up to find the source, expects to find malice in their eyes and finds glee instead, as though this is great progress.

"продолжать," the general says, so he stands again and looks at the girls waiting patiently for his next instruction. 

Some are staring at the body that is being dragged away by masked guards. Some keep their heads bowed respectfully or stand at full attention, like any good soldier awaiting command from a superior. But one - one looks directly at him, emerald green eyes burning through him with the intensity of a distant sun. It unsettles him, the same way it had when he was made to inspect them through the bars of their cells.

 _She is fire_ , he thinks, and makes note to keep his distance, else he'll get burned.

"продолжать," he repeats. They move back into the fighting stance he was demonstrating and he tries to calm the painful thrumming of his heart.

* * *

Three days pass before exhaustion starts to wear down on him. They have been given breaks for water and for food, which is more than he can recall being afforded on any other operation, but they make up for it in tireless hours. There are no windows in the building, at least not the parts they are restricted to, making it impossible to tell what time it is at any given moment. And yet he knows it is a full work day, even though he could not explain how. Something vague in the back of his mind speaks of his body being sore like this once before, and with it comes the smell of stale water and the blaring of horns on industrial boats.

The memory is not his. It confuses him. But he knows they are working for full days, and it begins to affect him after the third.

He can't make sense of it at first. His movements are slowed and his words come harder to him, as though it is an effort to speak his native tongue. It makes no sense. He knows several languages ( he questioned the how only once, and was taught very thoroughly that his tongue is not meant for extraneous things ), but Russian is the easiest, the fastest, the first on his mind. It is _his_ , and he's - he struggles.

They don't notice at first, and he easily turns it into an exercise in taking cues from English assailants. The eleven children that remain are not well versed yet; he tells his handlers they will be useless in Eastern Europe and America if they cannot tell when a man is vulnerable by his blathering, and they accept this as necessary training.

That makes it easier for a short while. He cannot question why English does not give him as much of a headache, or why his accent rounds off in curbed syllables and stressed vowels. It's irrelevant. He can think clearer this way, his reflexes returning with sharper clarity. After breaking one girl's arm, he wonders if it isn't _too_ strong, if there is an aggression he must school before being able to teach these children properly.

The thought brings back bitterness, unpleasantry, and the headache that follows leaves room for one to get a knife into his thigh.

Six days, then, when he must be taken in for repairs. His leg is still bleeding, but the pain is nothing compared to his own training; it's the promise of what's to follow that leaves him tense to shaking. He must be carried to the chair, and the children follow at the general's behest. 

" _A learning lesson_ ," he says, " _for what makes a true asset to the nation. You must be willing to give your all._ "

He understands, then, that he is to be an example. The model of what one should be to serve Russia and her interests, to help better the world. It stirs something powerful and hot within him, something he can't recognize as an anger that has burned within him for as long as he has lived ( if there's a number, he doesn't know it ). His breathing quickens, pulse elevating in a rapid beep on the monitors above him. The doctor beside him tenses, looks at the rising numbers on the screen before looking down at him, and then _terror_ fills his eyes.

 _Good_ , a quiet voice within him whispers - but another voice, a louder voice, starts screaming in protest. He doesn't realize it's coming from him until the lights in the room come back into focus, until he can feel the tearing in his throat and the blood dribbling down his chin. It's sloppy and goes directly against protocol; the doctor must've gotten jumpy in his fear and forgotten the mouthguard that would've prevented him from biting through his tongue. The general starts shouting in furious Slavic that he can't translate through the ringing in his head. Numbness fills his entire being and his body goes slack, vision blurring in and out.

He isn't - he doesn't know where he is, not really, which sends terror jerking through his veins. He is here to help - to - he's. He's scared. He's in pain and he's scared and he doesn't remember why, but his mad search around the room for answers provides none. The technicians are off to the side of the machines arguing, the guards in the room have their guns raised without any idea of where to point them, and the children -

There are children in the room. Young girls, ten of them, and most are watching the lead doctor being beaten by an indignant general. Others are scared and confused, looking around for some guidance to ground them. But one - one watches him convulsing in the chair, her green eyes boring into him with the same burning ferocity of her flame red hair.

He fleeting thinks her name is Natalia and that this will happen to her too one day before the world stops spinning and fades to black.

* * *

He is to help. They need him to sharpen tools that will carve the world into perfection. He is - confused, disoriented by the grey walls of a facility he is certain he has never seen before despite the familiarity of the bloodstains soaked into the ground. The armory has empty spaces where some fool has misplaced necessary gear, and the children follow him with watchful gazes as he inspect them for strengths to build upon.

One girl, the eldest in the group ( after the others were killed, he doesn't know ), dares to look him directly in the eyes, emerald green burning into pale blue, and he knows very suddenly that he _is_ to help.

She excels above the rest, faster to pick up new techniques and bullheaded enough to keep trying when she fails until she doesn't anymore. Watching her is like observing a maelstrom, some natural force building up in a spiral of destruction: beautiful and haunting. He has a sister her age, he thinks and does not know, has no face or name or memory to associate with the certainty that he has one and would kill any man to come within arm's reach of her if it would keep her from this horrid place. These children will be twisted and bent and broken into something powerful to be held in someone else's hand while their own remain empty, weak.

The thought fills him with horror and dread and guilt, an unpleasant clenching in his stomach that he can't identify as any of those things. He is angry, and he is scared, and he can't let this happen to them. To her.

" _Natalia_ ," he calls out sharply, a reprimand to every ear hovering above them. She turns from her opponent ( a younger child that has blood running down her temples and bruises across her skin; he hopes someone will weep for her, because she will not last much longer ) and walks over to stand at attention before him, only without the due deference of a underling to their superior. She looks him in the eyes, searching, and it unsettles him. She sees more than there is to the naked eye.

It's how he knows she will survive this. She must.

" _You know English, more than the others_." He poses it as a question, even though it is an observation they both know to be true. Her fiery gaze falters only once in the direction of their audience, the general and his pigs that watch with wine in their hands and a pistol at their hip. Everyone on this floor could kill them if they were given the word, and they know it. He knows it. It fills him with a vicious sort of pride, and he sees the same buried malice in her eyes when they flick back to him.

"Yes," she answers firmly, accent slight enough that he might believe she were American herself if she gave it any effort. It's good, a useful skill. She will need it.

"You will listen to me," he tells her, "and you will listen closely. Do you understand?"

"Yes." No hesitation, not a single missed beat. Following orders is a necessary trait for any soldier, let alone an assassin, but discerning their intent is better suited to a spy. He wonders if she realizes just how useful she will be, and imagines they will find out very soon.

" _Good_ ," he says dispassionately, eyes shifting back to the work at hand. She follows his lead and returns to her spar looking appropriately chastised.

It's easy to focus his efforts on her after that. There is solid evidence towards her dominance over the others, particularly after she holds her own against him for just over three minutes before he knocks her on her ass. The look she shoots him is furious even with blood dripping from her nose, and he feels nothing inside of him, just a hollow echo of something that used to be there. Someone equally as young and brazen when they shouldn't've been, full of life in a world that aimed to snuff their fire out.

He must protect her. He must. He must.

He trains her personally, stops pitting her against the other girls unless it is to demonstrate where they are weak in their techniques. Every time he pins her down or throws her across a room, he barks at her in Russian and whispers warnings in English, ' _this is going to hurt_ ' and ' _you must land on your feet, or they will break them_.' She fights back and sweats and bleeds beneath the gleam of his hand, stubborn and defiant even as she plays at submissive. He tells her she will become one of their greatest weapons ( after him, he doesn't say, because they need her to become a shadow of humanity and he is a shadow of death ); she asks him for his name.

He tells her he doesn't have one. On the fifth day, he tells her it's James right before the training is halted and they are all filed back into the room. His body shudders and jolts and his jaw aches around the mouthguard, eyes blown wide in pain and fear and tears that can't be shed until the machine stops. She stands at attention and watches closely, exactly as he'd instructed when he told her they will make him forget.

They make a routine of it, every five days, to prevent another lapse into inadequacy ( he cannot remember who he used to be, the name ' _Becca B_ ' or blond hair and blue eyes that look at him with pride ); every time, she punches his temples, swings away from a headlock to climb onto his shoulders, or throws the entirety of her weight against him and hisses ' _James_ ' until he remembers what his mission is.

He is to help. He has to help. He frowns and flips her beneath him with his left hand wrapped around her throat, remembers the name ' _Natalia_ ' and doesn't flinch when small flesh fingers reach up to touch the star on his shoulder.

This is the Red Room, and he is here to clean their armory into perfection. There are six girls left. Natalia is the oldest and the others are not fighting for their lives the same way she is. They are fast, quickly becoming stronger, and she will outlast the lot of them. He tells her this one day, when they're given equipment and her small hand is attempting to keep a wire from her throat.

" _You must survive_ ," he whispers in her ear, not giving half the effort he should to garrotte her properly. It would be so easy to kill them, all of them, at any moment, and he doesn't. He doesn't - "You will survive," he amends as she starts choking. "Do not let them destroy you."

He releases her just as a dozen guards in full body armor with raised Vityaz - fingers on the trigger, ready as ever - flood the room. Everyone obediently comes to a halt ( except one girl that will soon join the others as she chokes on her last breath ) and he follows protocol, goes to his knees with his hands laced together behind his back. His head is bowed, but Natalia is less than a meter away from him, the toes of her bare feet curling just slightly. 

He chances a glance up, and the last thing he sees as they drag him away is her green eyes burning right through him. Burning with anger and fear and a life he won't get to live.

 _Good_ , a quiet voice within him whispers over the sound of distant screams.

**Author's Note:**

> "продолжать," the general says: continue.


End file.
